


Alone in the Night

by redstaronmyshoulder (CaptainAmelia22)



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: #BuckyNat Week, #BuckyNat Week 2015, #BuckyNat Week 2015 Mini Bang, Alternate Universe-Escorts, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Prostitution, soul mates, winter widow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:03:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3575446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAmelia22/pseuds/redstaronmyshoulder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is the Russian Ballet's principal dancer and he is Maria Hill's favorite employee.  </p><p>Neither of them are remotely similar and yet, something other than money, calls them together on the night she hires him. He goes to her, expecting nothing but a spoiled celebrity with a desire to be fawned over for a few hours.  She expects nothing but a well-chiseled pack of abs and a scripted dialogue she will most likely ignore and maybe if she's lucky, she'll have one night of peace in this strange City.</p><p>What they find in each other is something completely other.  </p><p>What they find is comfort in the arms of another human being just as damaged as themselves.  </p><p>And it scares them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a panic, not expecting it to become my favorite Winter Widow story I've ever written. But it is and I'm so proud of it, even if it is a little funky. 
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys it. 
> 
> I also want to just say thank you to my artist. Lor is amazing and she captured the characters so well in her pieces. So thanks Lor! If anyone wants to see more of her amazing work, she's sensual-archer-god on tumblr. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and Happy BuckyNat/Winter Widow week! 
> 
> -M

 

With her wine-stained lips, yeah she's nothing but trouble  
Cold to the touch but she's warm as a devil  
I gave all my heart but she won't heal my soul  
She tasted a break and I can't get more

 

You got me in chains, you got me in chains for your love  
But, I wouldn't change, no I wouldn't change this love

_~Chains~_

* * *

 

She wakes up screaming in a city she does not know or love.  

“Yelena,” she pants, her fingers tangling in her sweat stained sheets. “Yelena, I’m sorry…”

Chest heaving, eyes wild, she sits in her massive, empty penthouse bed and tries to forget the sounds of screams echoing in her ears.  

Screams twenty years old.  

“I’m sorry…”

The taste of blood washes over her tongue once more.  She does not look at her hands, half-convinced in her terror that they will be coated in blood.

In the blood of the girl she will always consider a sister.  

Too much blood…

With a muttered curse she throws herself from the bed, throwing the heavy and undoubtedly expensive bedding aside carelessly, and makes her way towards the balcony.  The bedroom air, stale with fear and her cooling sweat, chokes her and all she longs for is the fresh cold air of the ancient city she grew up in in Russia.  For something she knows and understands.  Absently, she slips into the warm, fur-lined coat she’d worn that night to her latest rehearsal for the ballet, and she sighs as the soft rabbit skin settles around her naked body.

Hugging the coat tight around her, she slips onto the balcony which lines her entire apartment.  It is as elegant as the penthouse suite-full of high end appliances, expensive yet sturdy fabrics and it provides the best view of the City she has seen yet.  

Cold wind-bitter and comforting, if not entirely the same as that which she longs for-whips her dark red hair around her face, tangling it in her lips and eyelashes.  

She pays it no mind, instead focusing on the City below, just as sleepless as her.  

From her height she imagines she can hear the taxis honking impatiently, can listen to the many conversations of the tourists as they scramble from one attraction to another and that she is a part of all of their worlds.  

From her marble and stainless steel self-imposed prison, she imagines she can walk free without a ghost of doubt and fear.  

That by some miracle she would not be so alone.  That maybe her bloody past would not echo so loudly in the back of her skull.

And yet…

Yelena.  

She stands there on her balcony, poised absently with arms extended a little ways from her sides and feet arched, for a long while.  Her nose goes numb with cold, the tips of her fingers beginning to ache in the wind still whipping all about her.  But she does not notice.

It’s not until she slips her hands into her pockets, the joints screaming as they once more begin to warm, that she finds the business card in her coat pocket.  

The little slip of card stock is ragged, slightly torn at one corner from when she’d struggled to remove it from the back of her dressing room vanity’s drawer.  It’s still legible though and she frowns down at the raised ink scrawled across it’s surface.

She barely remembers finding it.  Barely remembers tucking it into her pocket before rushing from the dark theater after yet another pointless rehearsal. Her car had been waiting, her driver impatiently tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as she dawdled, hoping every other dancer from the ballet would be long gone.  

She had torn the card from the back of the drawer and then forgotten all about it.  

Until now.  

 _The Shield and Hydra_ it read in an archaic script, gold ink highlighting the words.   _For those with a dangerous taste._

A name was scrawled in a cramped hand on the back.

Maria Hill.  

And under that was an email address.  No phone.  No address.  Just the business name, the slightly chilling buy-line.  

And this Hill woman’s name.  

“For those with a dangerous taste,” she reads once more, her lips framing the words, even as her mind scrambles to make sense of just what this card may be offering.  

She's seen enough of the world to know what tastes this card makes sure not to mention.  She knows how the theatre’s patrons would feel if they knew where she had found this little slip of temptation, tucked against the very back of the vanity drawer.  She, like many, had heard the rumors of the former principal’s particular tastes.  

She’d found evidence other than this card both in the dressing rooms at Lincoln Theater and in this very apartment.  

Blindfolds.  Finely woven bits of rope in a box in the closet.  Scars on the bead and footboards of her bed.  An ornate razor folded and tucked away in the bedside table.  

She was not sheltered.  

She knows the world better than most.  

With a shiver and another soft curse, she goes back inside.  She does not remove her jacket right away; instead she paces at the foot of her bed, trying desperately to warm her body and organize her thoughts.

She is in a strange city.  An entirely different world than the one she left behind in Moscow.

Her phone sits on the table just to the right of her bed, its screen dark but nonetheless inviting.

Without a second thought she grabs it and opens her email.  

 _Ms. Hill_ , she types as quickly as she can.   _Emma Frost recommended your services to me before her triumphant return to the Seattle Symphonic Ballet.  She praised you and your employees, saying that during my visit I should approach your business should a need arise.  Please respond with any recommendations and know my interests veer towards what would be considered All-American._

_Sincerely,_

_Natasha Romanova_

_Principal in the Russian Ballet_

_Principal in the New York City Ballet._

She hesitates, her fingers frozen on the tiny keys of her phone, thumb hovering over the send button as she re-reads her words.  She adjusts and tweaks, making sure to keep it vague-just in case the penthouse wifi is being monitored-and for a long moment she wonders if she’s really going to do this.  

Enlist the services of an apparent madam.  

A pimp, in less civilized phrasings.  

If she’s really going to acquire an escort in the hopes of keeping her ghosts at bay, to keep her sister’s screams from echoing so loudly in the back of her skull.  

Her thumb hovers over the send button for so long the screen goes dark again but then, as the taste of blood once more begins to rise up in the back of her throat and her skin begins to prickle with memories and misery, she wakes the tiny device up once more and presses the green arrow glowing on it’s screen.

A tiny woosh issues from the phone as it falls from nerveless fingers and she swallows desperately, trying to ignore the copper taste of blood on her tongue.  

Goods and services.

That’s all this was.

A foreigner coming to stimulate the local economy by partaking in the local attractions.

Sex for sale.

The oldest profession.

Memories.

 _She may not even see the email_ , she thinks idly, hopefully, fingers tightening in the collar of her battered jacket.   _She may just think I’m just another idiotic dancer, drunk on fame and the desire for a good time in New York.  She may just ignore it...Please God…_

_Or maybe she knows how truly damaged you really are…_

The thought fleets across her mind, digging dangerously painful claws into her psyche and once again she is struck by memories of Yelena lying in fresh white snow, blood leaking from the corners of her mouth. Weak screams fill her ears once more and she groans.  

Before she can scream or cry or just end it all with a well-placed bullet, her phone chimes.

A familiar woosh comes from its speakers and the screen lights up, casting the room in a ghostly electric blue glow.

With shaking fingers she reaches for the device, part of her hoping it’s just another email from her idiot American director at the ballet.

That maybe the last hour has just been a bad-dream.  The figment of a shattered sanity.  

But as she opens her email, she realizes that it is not.

And that for the first time since she’d arrived in New York City a week ago, maybe things would not be so horrific.

_I have someone in mind for you Ms. Romanova-someone with skills you might find comforting and useful during your stay in New York. I have attached his contract to this email.  If you continue being interested in the Shield and Hydra’s particular business endeavors, please respond within the next 24 hours._

_Your Pleasure is Our Pleasure._

_Maria Hill_

_Manager of the Shield and Hydra_

Natasha Romanov’s fingers tremble as she scrolls through the message.

Maria Hill, she realizes as she pulls up the contract, runs a very well-oiled machine.  

The contract is as succinct and clearly stated as the woman’s written message.

 _So listed below, the services of one James Buchanan Barnes, are enlisted for one night to the desires of the undersigned_ , it reads under a header bearing the spread eagle wings and stretching tentacles of the business’s crest.  

She reads the entire document as carefully as she read her own contract to the the Lincoln and before she can think too much on what she may be embarking upon, she signs it with her digital signature and once more sends it back to Maria Hill.  

This time her fingers do not tremble.

This time…

She sleeps, finally, a deep dreamless sleep-the first she’s had in months, if not years-and her lips curl in a tiny smile as she grips her phone tightly and tucks her chin into her coat.  

Soon she will not be alone.

Soon, she will share a single night with one other meant entirely to keep her safe and warm.

Soon, she will meet one James Buchanan Barnes.

His name feels like hope to her.

Hope and warmth.

She does not understand it, but neither does she try as she drifts into sleep.  

It just is.  

So she accepts it and sleeps as deeply as she can.

The warm smell of well-worn canvas and sweaty bodies washes over her and Maria Hill wrinkles her nose in disgust.

This is not the place she wants to be on a Friday night.

And yet…

Business.

“Barnes!” she barks, dark eyes flashing as she watches the two men in the boxing ring jab fiercely at exposed ribs and barely protected jawlines.  “What have I told you about damaging the merchandise?”

She does not wince when a well-aimed blow lands on a set of ribs, nor does she respond when the owner of said ribs spits out a muffled curse from around his mouth guard.

Even she knows he could have blocked that punch if she hadn’t distracted him.

She smirks and folds her arms.

 _Serves him right_.

“Goddammit, Hill!”

James Buchanan Barnes-Bucky to only a few, Barnes to the rest-, bent double and wheezing, glares at her from between the ring ropes but she does not apologize.  Nor does she respond to the dark glance the slender blond man shoots her, fists still raised protectively to his face.

He is not her business, even though she knows just how much he means to her most troublesome escort.  

So she simply waits, ever patient.  

“What do you want Hill?”

His voice is still muffled from the guard but his irritation is by no means lost.

She knows it’s his night off.

She knows she promised him a weekend away from business to spend in this godforsaken gym.  

She knows, god-fucking-dammit.

But this deal she’s made…

It’s just too good.

For all of them.

Fucking gym with its foreclosure notice taped to the front door included.  

“I have an assignment for you Barnes,” she says, her voice level despite the glares still being leveled on her.  She holds up a folder, marked with their newest client’s name and the Shield and Hydra’s symbol.

_One that may finally free you from this stupid debt you think you still owe me._

The eagle wings and tentacles glint in the dingy light of the gym and both men sigh in resignation; Maria Hill may be out of place in the ancient boxing ring, but neither man can argue her right to be there.

She and Barnes go way back, back all the way to a cold Soviet prison in Siberia, and if there’s one thing they both hate, it’s the thought that he may still owe her a debt.

That their ghosts may still be haunting their footsteps.

“Who is it?” Barnes asks, finally able to straighten up and shake the ache in his ribs off.

He does not take the folder.

Instead he drapes his arms over the ring’s ropes and takes a swig of water from the bottle hanging off the nearest pole.  His dark eyes never leave hers and she narrows hers at the blatant challenge in his gaze.

She knows him better than most.

They’ve been working together for too many years.

“Someone you will find very interesting, I’m sure,” she says, folder still suspended between them, a twisted peace offering she knows he wishes he could ignore.  His eyebrow cocks at that as his companion snorts at his back and he rolls his left shoulder-his bad one-carefully.  

“Yeah?” he drawls, even as he takes another swig of water, eyes locked on the folder and their client’s name.  “By ‘interesting’ do you mean fat, lazy and mean-spirited?”  He spits the water out in her general direction, being sure to keep the worst of it from splashing on her expensive black leather boots.  “Because the last time you gave me an ‘interesting’ client, I couldn’t work for a week and the bruises didn’t fade for another two after that.”

She does not apologize for what she knows was a poor choosing of patronage.

She’d done that enough after it happened, when he’d spent nearly two nights in a hospital and the next three on powerful painkillers that kept him horizontal in bed, completely wasted.  

She prays this time does not go so badly.

For all that they do not always see eye-to-eye, after all, she and James Barnes do share a certain companionship.

Freeing a wrongly imprisoned man from a Soviet gulag has a way of forming reluctant bonds, after all.  

She smirks and offers the folder once more.  “How’s your Russian, Barnes?” she asks, dark eyes sparking in challenge as he continues to hesitate.  “Gotten rusty yet?”

He bares his teeth in response and runs taped fingers through his sweaty hair.  

“ _Eto normal'no. Poshel na khuy_ ,” he snaps, slipping between the ropes to land on the floor beside her.  

She does not step back from him as he crowds her-barely bats an eye when his sweaty chest presses against her expensive black leather coat.  

She knows him better than that.

Her brows arch at the harsh Russian spilling from his lips and she smirks.  

“Well, seems you’re just the man for this job then, aren’t you?” she quips and he snorts.

“Fuck you too, Maria,” he sighs, his eyes flicking back to meet the blond man’s light blue gaze, who shrugs and waves his hand in a “just do it already” motion.  

Barnes curses under his breath as he turns back to her, dark eyes shadowed as he gazes down at the folder she still holds suspended between them but he doesn’t turn away from her.

In the end…

In the end he needs her as much as she needs him.

Their partnership is a necessary evil.

In the end…

He takes the folder.  

 _Natasha Romanova_ is scrawled across the top left corner in Hill’s tight script.   _Russian ballerina._

His eyes close and he sighs to himself, even as he tucks the folder under his arm and makes his way towards the locker rooms at the back of the gym.

Fuck.

**

“You are not what I ordered.”  

Natasha Romanova stands in the middle of her penthouse suite, arms crossed defensively over her chest and green eyes wide; she stares at him like she’s seen a ghost-like she’s ready for him to sprout fangs and leap forward in hopes of ravaging her.

She looks as if she’s just about ready to run away.  

Natasha Romanova is quite simply the most stunning person he’s ever seen in his life.  

And she scares him, almost as much as he seems to be scaring her.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he drawls from the living room doorway, his eyes narrowing as he studies his apparently reluctant client.  “Did you order a plain cheeseburger and fries?”  

She doesn’t laugh at his poor attempt at humor.

Simply hugs her arms a bit tighter across her chest and fiddles with what appears to be a business card.  

He cocks a brow at that and tries to make some sense of the enigma standing before him; dancer, the files Hill had compiled on her had said.  Primarily of the Russian ballet, currently on loan from said company to the New York City Ballet for their revival of Tchaikovsky’s _Sleeping Beauty_ , Natasha Romanova had been the principal in the Russian company for close to five years.  She’d toured with the company for another three before that and had trained at one of the best academies during her teen years.  

Looking at her now, he could definitely believe it.

She holds herself with an easy grace that does nothing to hide how truly fierce she is.  

Everything about her screams chilly precision and well-executed action.

 _You’d make a great boxer Natalia_ , he reflects as he runs his fingers over the faint stubble on his jaw and tries to keep some of his growing desire at bay. There’s something about her-and damn Hill for knowing this about him-that calls to mind his old days in the Soviet Union.  In their dank prisons and soot-stained streets.

There’s something brutally broken about her that reminds him a little of himself.

And he longs to understand why.

 _Barely here five minutes and she already has me on my knees_ , he thinks to himself, lips quirking in a small sideways grin.   _Damn it all to hell..._

“Please leave,” she snaps, green eyes sparking furiously as he moves from the doorway towards the couch she stands beside, arms still folded across her chest.  

That little slip of paper-definitely a business card-slips between her fingers a few more times and he arches his brow once more.  

“But you already paid for the night, doll,” he says, the easy drawl still in his voice despite the abject curiosity he feels towards her.  He’s realized after too many years of doing this that sometimes the best way to get a client to relax, is to be as gruff as possible.  A crooked grin and a slightly rough demeanor could do wonders at keeping them both safe.

And besides, she looks like she could do with some slumming.

When he grins, her green eyes flick from his towards the stack of bills he holds, held together with an obviously expensive money clip.  Her “donation” for the night.  

Paid and delivered.

Time for him to uphold his half of the contract.  

“Don’t tell me I scare you that much,” he murmurs in only slightly accented Russian.  His dark eyes, hooded and heated, never leave hers and she shivers as he steps slowly in her direction, around the heavy glass fronted coffee table and up to the couch.  

“You speak Russian?” she asks, in like tongue and he hesitates at the plaintiveness in her voice.

In the desperation he sees in her gaze.  

 _“Da.  Ya delayu_.”  Yes.  I do.

She does not back away from him and her arms finally begin to relax, their eyes still locked as he approaches so very carefully.  

“Oh thank God,” she whispers, eyes closing as she sags into the couch, white leather clad legs crossing absently as she sags into the expensive and plush upholstery.  “I do not think I could take ‘All-American’ after all.”

She laughs at her apparent joke and he frowns as he falls to her knees before her.

“What do you mean _Natashenka?_ ” he asks, the nickname falling from his lips before he can stop himself; it’s an old thing he remembers from his cold days in the Soviet Union, that name. The pet names always intrigued him, always made him long for home.

Something he realizes she longs for as well when she smiles shakily down at him.

“I thought I did not want to be reminded of my home, James Barnes,” she says, her fingers rising to rest against his collarbones; the very edges of black ink can be seen from the open collar of his white button-up shirt and as she watches his hands press into the cushions of the couch and the plush carpet beneath his knees, she catches sight of more tattoos tracing the fine bones of his lower arms.  

They are as familiar as the language they speak, his a rough street dialect she barely recalls, hers the more elegant form she was taught at the academy when she was too young to care about lost identities.  

A sparrow stretches its wings along the scarred knuckles of his right hand, the stark black lines lending a beauty to the hard musculature she can feel pressing into her calf.  

Cyrillic script crawls along the fine structure of his collar bones, easing in and out of sight with each breath he takes and she longs to read his story.

To understand him.

“Why do you wear a glove?” she asks suddenly, as his fingers begin to circle her ankle and his lips trail light kisses up her wrist.  “On your left hand, why the glove?”

He hesitates, his eyes darkening when he pulls away from her touch just enough so he can look into her eyes. His haunted gaze-familiar, o Bozhe, so familiar-locks on hers and his crooked grin turns a little bitter.

“Maria didn’t tell you?” he asks as he rises, pushing himself firmly away from her to take a few steps from the couch so he stands by the blank wall of windows.  She shakes her head, heart hammering in her ears as she watches him, watches him roll his left shoulder in a movement she suspects is habitual.

Habitual and full of self-hatred.

The fingers flex in their tight black leather glove and again she wonders at it.  

Wonders at what he and his madam are trying to hide.

Wonders at the tattoos and the scars and the rough street-Russian.

Wonders at the brokenness of the man-the toy-standing before her.

“James?”

He stiffens at her use of his Christian name, at the familiar sadness in her voice.  She rises from the couch, eyes still locked on the powerful shoulders of the man turned away from her. She can sense his panic and discomfort.

And part of her wonders if this is how every single one of his assignations goes.

If this is just part of his act.

He doesn’t look at her as she steps quietly up behind him, the heat from her slight body washing over him as he gazes at his reflection in the plate glass. “Maria was supposed to tell you,” he sighs.  “She usually lets my clients know…”

He stops, his voice trailing away as his fingers curl into themselves against the window and his back hunches protectively away from her slender figure.  

Natasha frowns at the back of the man she apparently bought for the night and her mind spins as she tries to make sense of the words he says.  

At just what stands before her, in expensive Armani and silk.  

“Know what, James?” she asks, once more his name falling from her lips as naturally as her screams.  “What is wrong?  Tell me.”

Her fingers press instinctively into the small of his back, the heat of his massive body warming her and comforting her in some base way.  

It’s in that moment that she longs…

Longs to understand him, to know his body.

To trace the ink she knows twists across his skin, telling her a story she thinks not many in this warm Western world would understand.  

She longs to know him.

To feel his touch on her body.

To feel his lips on hers.

To just _be_ with him.

“James,” she says in English, her voice firm and her green eyes flashing.  “Tell me right now what is wrong.”

Her fingers are hard on his hips as she forces him to face her, her red nails biting into his skin through the expensive fabric of his dark suit.  

Brown eyes, so dark they’re almost black, meet hers and he sighs.  

“I’m damaged goods, Natalia,” he says, his body leaning instinctively into hers.  “Maria should have told you that.”

His left hand is curled into a fist at his hip and she cocks an eyebrow at it.  “Damaged?” she repeats.  “Show me what you mean and let me decide for myself, whether or not you are damaged.”  

James Barnes hesitates at that-at the cold, no-nonsense expression he sees in her eyes-and before he can stop himself, he shrugs free of his suit jacket.  The soft rustle it makes as it falls to the floor behind him is the only noise in her apartment and she watches with avid eyes as his fingers-gloved and flesh-rise to the loosened knot of his tie.  The Cryrillic etched into his skin flashes between the white silk of his shirt, telling a bit about the man they mark with so much finality and her skin bumps at the little snippets she can see.

 _Damaged_ , he’d said.

 _Scarred_ , his body said.

 _Stunning_ , her mind tells her as his warmth washes over hers and she began to drown in his dark gaze.  

The tie joins his jacket a moment later and she shudders as it snakes between his feet; his fingers hesitate at the buttons of his shirt and his eyes close for a moment as he breathes, nostrils flaring as he struggles to remain calm.

She waits, body poised before his and hands still firm on his hips.

Anchoring him without either of them realizing it.

Finally, after a terribly long moment, his eyes open once more and she smiles up at him, silently telling him she’s fine.

Silently telling him she’s there for him.

He unbuttons the shirt and yanks it free of his slacks, letting it gape open even as he removes the glove from his left hand.

Scars, raised and white, twist from his collarbone, to his bicep and all the way to his fingers, some of which end at the second knuckle.  The worst of the damage, though, centers around his shoulder, through which she can make out a five-pointed star, the ink faded with age and damage.  A matching star-just as faded but not damaged like this one-marks his right shoulder, telling a story she already knows.

Unbreakable.

Loyal.

A king.

Her fingers shake on his skin and her gasp is lost in the hammering in his ears, in the rush of panic so familiar he wishes he could forget.  The glove drops from nerveless fingers, joining the tie and the expensive jacket Maria forced him to wear against his better judgement and he tries to turn away from the delicate ballerina standing in his shadow.

“I should go,” he rasps, in Russian once more, something about this particular client forcing the language to become second nature for him. For the ghosts of his past to press a little too firmly along the outer-edges of his psyche.

She makes his skin burn.  His body tense in the desire to fight.

To fuck.

She scares him, even as he longs to fall to his knees before her and turn his face into her touch.  

He grits his teeth and snarls, jerking free of her still trembling touch to head towards her door, “You can keep the money, I’m sorry this isn’t going to work.”

“James!”

Her fingers lock around his wrist-the left-and she forces him to face her.  “Look at me, please.”  

Green eyes, as dark as the purest emeralds they resemble, lock on his and he drowns in her gaze for a moment.  He can see the fear in her gaze though.  Can see the way she tries to keep from looking at his shoulder.

He can see dammit.

“Natalia,” he whispers, his entire being focusing on her touch.  On the way her fingers press into the pulse at his wrist.  At the way her thumb begins to rub soothing circles along the base of his thumb.  “Let me go.”

“No,” she says, a small smile curling her lips.  “I won’t.  Do you know why, _moy medved_?”

_My bear._

His skin bumps at the nickname.

At the memories it brings to mind, of a cold prison in Soviet controlled Siberia.  Of men cheering, even as a monstrous roar begins to vibrate up through the soil of the prison yard.  

Of too many needles carving his story into the scarred skin of his body.  

Of death.

And life.

Atonement.

Of Maria Hill standing in the shadows of his cold prison cell, hand raised between them in a twisted peace offering.

_I can help you.  I can help you forgive yourself Barnes..._

“Why?” he rasps, dark eyes closing as she pulls him closer to her, other hand rising to smooth the edges of his shirt away from his body while his ghosts bear a little too hard on him.  “Why Natalia?”

“Because you think you are broken,” she says, her elegant Russian slipping into the rough street dialect both wish they didn’t have to know and he shudders as her fingers stroke along the ink stretching from his navel up to his shoulders. “But to me, you are perfect.”

The pads of her fingers brush so gently along the scars twisting cruelly into his shoulder, being careful not to press too hard, and he wonders at how she knows he still feels pain in the muscles there. Her eyes darken further as he leans into her touch, some primal part of him longing to feel her body pressed into his and her smile deepens.  

“I find myself glad you are not a cheeseburger and fries, James Barnes,” she says, a dark humor coloring the harsh Russian she speaks and he barks out a laugh despite himself, even as he lowers his head press against her forehead.

Her screams wake him, jerking him back to reality so sharply he instinctively sprawls out of the bed with fists raised and teeth bared in a silent snarl.  

“Yelena!” she shrieks again, back arching in the violence of her night-terrors and fingers clawing desperately at her sheets.  “I’m sorry!  Don’t leave me, please!”

He doesn’t hesitate as she readies for another scream, chest heaving and neck tensing when her back arches; he goes to her, ready to comfort in any way possible.

Any way...

“Natasha!  Wake up Natasha!  It’s just a dream!”  He doesn’t touch her, not at first.  Doesn’t sit too close to her in the massive bed he knows she sleeps alone in most nights.  

He understands her better than anyone else would in this too-bright City.  

He understands her ghosts.

“Natalia, you’re safe.”  

His fingers stroke the back of her hand so gently, careful to not press too hard, to hover too long.  

“Come back to me Natalia,” he whispers, the Russian spilling from his lips once more as he kneels beside her in her tangled bedsheets.

“Yelena,” she sobs, fingers twisting beneath his, searching...searching for something.

Or someone.

He wraps his fingers around her wrist.  Lets himself anchor her.

Just like she anchored him last night.  

This, he understands.

“Open your eyes,” he says as he lays down beside her and rubs soothing circles against the slowly calming pulse in her wrist. “Open your eyes, my darling.  You’re safe now.”  

His voice is gentle, the cocky drawl gone. He speaks to her like she spoke to him last night.

As an equal.

“Help me,” she whispers, her face turning into his chest, her eyes squeezed close as she struggles to stay awake; he tucks her firmly against his body, fitting her against his chest once more.

They come together like two pieces of a puzzle long thought lost.  

He refuses to let himself think about that.

Bought and paid for.

That’s all their night together was.

She presses her face more tightly to his throat and he shivers at the way her drying tears feel on his skin.

“Tell me who Yelena was, Natalia,” he murmurs, his fingers stroking her hair free of her eyes, her lips.  He doesn’t push, just holds her.

Comforts her.

Waits for her.

“Yelena was-was like a sister to me,” she whispers, her body shaking as the nightmare finally fades and his warmth eases through her cramped muscles. “We were orphans, the only family we knew, and I loved her.”  He cups the back of her head, keeping her firmly in place in the warm circle of his arms and she sighs.  “We were chosen for the Red Room-an academy set on training young girls to be the best dancers the world had ever seen-and we became so, after too many years of training. But I-I lost my focus.  I fell in love with an instructor and failed several tests, when I should have far exceeded expectations.”  She shivers, eyes squeezing closed against the memories of Yelena’s screams.  Barnes’ lips press into her hair, silently soothing her and she sobs quietly.  “Our masters found out, came for me one night, while the other girls slept in our dormitories.  But Yelena,” her voice hitches on the name, the half-sob tearing violently free of her and he closes his eyes in response, hugging her tight.  Natasha forces herself to go on, to tell this man she barely knows, her deepest secret.  The one thing that breaks her.

And makes her.

“But Yelena found out they were coming for me-she lay in my bed while I slept with our instructor-and our masters did not even notice.” She smiled into his chest, he felt the bitter twisting of her lips against his skin and he rubs her shoulders absently.  “Yelena and I looked so similar, very few could tell us apart.  And that night was no different; she was forced into the yard of the academy for punishment.  And every student was forced to watch.”  She hesitates, nails curling into the muscles of his body as the memories wash over her, but he doesn’t flinch from her touch.  “I couldn’t help her, I came too late to reveal the truth. Was too much of a coward to step forward and bear the punishment meant for me. I couldn’t save her, my sister.  I was meant to die, not Yelena,” she whispers and he realizes she isn’t speaking so much to him, as to the ghost of the girl long lost.  He strokes her hair and rubs her back, knowing she does not feel his touch.

Understanding.

Understanding the blood debt and the need for atonement.

Any form of atonement.

“They hit her too hard.  Hurt her too much,” Natasha whispers, eyes wide, Yelena’s voice screaming her name too loud in the back of her mind.  “The snow was so red, with her blood.  And they kept hitting her.  Even after she stopped screaming. And I just stood there, with the feel of his body still all over mine, and I watched her die for me.”

The sound of a gun firing echoes once more in her memory but she doesn’t say anything about it.

She knows the man holding her understands.  Understands her ghosts.  

She wishes she could thank him for that.

“You’re safe now, Natalia,” he murmurs, his lips pressing into her hair as he pulls her more tightly into his body.  “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Empty promises.

An empty shell of a life.  

That’s all this is.

She presses her lips against his skin, against the eight pointed star nestled in the hollow of his throat.  “Don’t leave me yet James,” she whispers, her voice still muddy with sleep and tears.  

He hugs her tighter, part of him hoping his warmth will ease her trembling.  

“Are you okay?” he asks, his fingers stroking along her back and over her hips. He wished last night for more time to get to know her, for more time to feel her body pressed against his.

He revels in this small chance but doesn’t let himself wonder why.  

Natasha is quiet for a moment, her breath warm on his skin and he breathes a sigh of relief as some of her trembling eases.  Her fingers stroke absently across his chest, across the five church steeples etched there, beneath the inky peaks of the stars and curls of Cyrillic spaced along his collar and shoulders.  

She runs a finger slowly along the scars that mark his left pectoral but he doesn’t pull away from her touch.

And isn’t that a mystery in-and-of-itself.

His patrons never touch him so familiarly.  

He never allows it, never lets himself stay so long either, in all honesty.

But this…

This feels like healing.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she whispers, her voice a little less rough.  “I should not have screamed.”

He snorts at that and rolls so he is beneath her.  “You don’t have to apologize, Tasha,” he says, his usual crooked grin in place once more as her hair tumbles over her shoulders to curtain their faces.  “We all have nightmares sometimes.  You hear me, _Natashenka_?  And your story is not the worst I’ve heard, I promise you.  Or even seen, for that matter.”  

Stark black lines, telling a story she wishes she did not know so well.  

Scars twisting an arm so brutally she can feel the ache in her own muscles.  

Ghosts, standing between them.

Dark brown eyes swallow her gaze once more and she smiles sadly, her hand rising to stroke his cheek.  

“I can see that,” she says with a sigh and a soft kiss to his lips, her fingers trailing over the black lines on his body, his skin rippling under her gentle touch. “My story is like far too many others in the Motherland, I think. It is not a good one for telling in a bed we just shared.”

He frowns and keeps his hands on her hips, locking her in place.  “Sometimes that’s the best place to tell ghost stories, Tasha,” he says, the scarred fingers of his left hand running along the knobs of her spine to cup the nape of her neck.  “Thank you for telling me.”

She smiles and kisses him once more.  “You are a good man James Barnes,” she says, fingers stroking the fine bones of his cheeks and jaw.  “I do not deserve you.”

He snorts and pulls her in for a firmer kiss, his hips twisting under hers so she can feel his erection.  “You’re stupid if you think that Natasha Romanova,” he growls against her lips, dark eyes challenging once more as she groans and her eyes flutter under his touch.  

He grins when her hips press down to grind against his cock and he chucks her under the chin.  “You deserve to be happy, you know, milaya moya devochka.”

She shudders at the endearment falling from his lips, at the friction once more growing between their pressing bodies and she groans.

“You are the first one to tell me that in a very long time, James,” she gasps, head falling back on her shoulders as his fingers begin to tease along the edges of her heat and his erection hardens under her buttocks.  “Oh God, hold me!”

His soft laughter washes over her, at her outburst and his teeth brush along the blushing swells of her breasts once more.  “All right, then, _Natashenka_ ,” he growls, his hands pressing into her hips as he positions her over the swollen crown of his cock. Her gasp arouses him as much as the sight of her curves pressing into his hands and he finds himself wondering.

Wondering when atoning became easy.

“Hold on,” he rasps, his hips rocking up to meet hers and once more they find themselves fitting together too perfectly.

Too perfectly…

“James,” she gasps, her eyes fluttering closed when his lips press into her throat.  “Please don’t leave me.  Please...don’t leave me like Yelena.”  

“I won’t,” he groans, his forehead pressing against hers, their bodies moving in perfect harmony together.  “I swear to you Natasha.  I swear…”

Empty promises.

Bought and paid for.

“I swear.”

**

The canvas is rough under the taped knuckles of his hands but he doesn’t pay any attention to it.

He just focuses on how it feels to hit something.

To hit and hit and hit…

Anything to keep from feeling like he’s broken.  

“ _Goddammit_ ,” he gasps under his breath, eyes glazed and mind anywhere but the old gym he spends too much time in.  “Goddammit.”

Five days.  Five days since the “Black Widow” job.    

His lips curl at the nickname his old friend Steve Rogers gave Natasha Romanova and he slams his right fist into the canvas punching bag a little harder.  Five days since he’d woken once more in her bed to find her gone and another stack of bills waiting for him on the bedside table.

It’d been more money than he’d ever scraped together from a single transaction.  But he hadn’t been happy to pocket it.  Or even proud.

It’d just left him agitated.  

Furious.

Hurt.  

She’d made him feel something other than bitterness and then she’d left him, without saying goodbye or even leaving a note.  

“Goddammit.”

“Bucky!”  

Steve’s voice snaps him back to reality faster than he cares to admit and he sighs. “What do you want Steve?” he asks, his fingers rising to rub tumbled, sweaty hair out of his eyes.  “I’m working out here.”

Steve’s eyes narrow in his direction and his best friend arches an eyebrow in the direction of the still steadily swinging bag.  “Is that what you call this then?” he asks, voice gentle despite the worry Barnes can see in his eyes. “It’s been five days Buck.  You should just forget her.”  

They’re light blue, as different from the emerald green he sees every time he closes his eyes now.  

He wishes he could forget her.

Forget the one woman in the world he longs to feel under his hands once more.  

Forget the promise he made to her, never realizing she would be the one to leave first.

Empty promises.

“She paid for me, Steve,” he says, his voice rough as he turns back to the still swinging punching bag.  “She paid for a night with me and I went to her willingly.”  

“Well, yeah,” Steve says, his eyes narrowing further as he watches his oldest friend begin to lightly tap the bag once more.  “You’re the one who’s stupid enough to work as an escort.”  

Barnes shakes his head and taps the scarred knuckles of his left hand against the canvas.  “It’s not that,” he grumbles, dark eyes locked on the bag’s logo.  “It’s just...I went to her because the money is good and we need it to get this stupid gym back from the bank, but I didn’t expect to come out of it hoping for something more than money.”  

Brown eyes meet blue and Steve’s brows rise in shock.  “Are you saying,” he sputters, his body sagging onto the scarred bench sitting just to the side of Barnes’ punching bag.  “Are you saying you...you love Natasha Romanova, Bucky?!”

The chain creaks, the only sound in the dingy and run-down gym they always find themselves in when things are going bad, and Barnes sighs.

“I don’t know Steve,” he mutters, head falling forward to press against the canvas and arm rising to curve around the bag.  “It was just one damn night.  And I don’t know anything about her besides basics.  But…” He hesitates, eyes glazing once more as he recalls that morning, when her body pressed into his. The way she’d fit against him so perfectly.  The way her eyes had looked, shadowed as they were through the fall of her red hair.  

“But I felt something every time she touched me,” he whispers, mostly to himself.  “I felt something when she kissed my scars and told me…”

 _You think you are broken_ , she says once more, in the back of his mind, those damn green eyes of hers sparking in challenge. _But to me, you are perfect._

“Ah, fuck it all,” he snarls to himself, hands striking the bag uselessly.  “I can’t get over her Steve.”  

The gym is silent for a long moment, Steve processing what his best friend has revealed and Barnes struggling to come to terms with the realization that maybe something more important than sex happened between him and a Russian dancer.  

That maybe, after far too many years spent at the beck-and-call of countless greedy and lonely socialites, his atoning for his sins has paid off.

The sound of the heavy front door creaking open and closed echoes eerily in the empty gym and both men glance up in surprise.  

She stands there, in the shadow of the boxing ring, as poised as she was the night he first came to her, and he finds himself thinking idly how stunning she would be gloved and facing off an opponent.

How fierce…

“Natalia,” he breathes, despite himself, her name falling from his lips like a prayer.

“Hello James,” she says, her voice fitting in the dusty space as perfectly as her body fit against his several days before, and she smiles sadly at him.  “I’m sorry-sorry I left that morning.”  

He stares at her from around the ragged punching bag, eyes wide as he takes in the skin-tight midnight blue cocktail dress she wears and the way her curly hair tumbles down her neck from the clip she wears at the back of her skull.  Her green eyes meet his, sad and haunted, and her smile goes a little crooked as she fiddles with the clasp on the clutch she holds.  

“Can you forgive me?”

He doesn’t move from the bag, his eyes drinking her up desperately and for a long moment the only thing that moves in the gym, are the dust motes swirling between them.

Steve eases up from the bench, swinging his portfolio bag once more over his shoulder and raises his hand in Natasha’s direction.  “Nice to meet you finally Ms. Romanova. I’ve heard a lot about you,” he says, his lips curling in a small smile when her eyes flick in his direction and she nods.  “Catch ya later Buck.”  

The sound of the front door closing behind him echoes in the cavernous space but the two people remaining within barely notice.  

“What happened Natasha?” he asks after a while, when the dust has settled after Steve’s passing and it feels like the only thing breathing in the gym are the mice nesting in the attic.  “Why did you leave?”

She doesn’t answer right away, simply moves closer to the punching bag, keeping it’s faded green canvas between them.  

“I had to be sure of something,” she says, in her careful Russian, her eyes never leaving his.  “Had to make sure this was right.”  

He frowns and watches her fingers stroke the bag gently.  “That what was right?” he asks, in English, his jaw setting when her fingers touch his.  “Us?”

He barks out a laugh at that, ignoring her wince, and slams his fist once more into the canvas, smiling bitterly when the canvas rocks into her.

She doesn’t sway though-simply takes the hit and pushes back against him.

“Yes,” she snaps, green eyes sparking furiously.  “Yes, actually.  I wanted to be sure this wasn’t going to be-to be another Yelena.”

He stills at that, fists planted on the bag and he swallows nervously.  “What-what do you mean?”

She sighs and rolls her eyes, tapping her hands against the canvas in a 1-2 combination.  “I made some coffee after running to the bank to get you your ‘tip,’” she smirks at the obvious quote in her voice and he blushes despite himself, his body moving with the bag as she works it lightly. “And then I sat on the balcony for a while, thinking about what we’d shared.”

She cups his chin gently, forcing him to look at her; he drowns in her gaze, body pressing into the bag, just to be closer to hers. She strokes her thumb along his lip and he opens his mouth instinctively, tasting her once more. He groans her name and she leans her cheek against the canvas, mere inches from his.  “I was thinking you’d come out to sit with me, James,” she says, eyes flashing daringly, her thumb still pressed to his lips. “But when I came inside I found my bed empty and my money gone.”  Challenge spills from her, hard and cold, and his skin bumps instinctively. “So tell me how I should feel about that _moy medved_?”

“I thought you ran,” he whispers, eyes fluttering closed when her mind-numbing scent washes over him.  “I thought you’d left me because you couldn’t bear to be with-with someone like me.”

Natasha snorts at that, fingers biting into his jaw and she forces him around the bag, to stand upright against her.

“You are an idiot James Barnes,” she snaps, both hands gripping his face now.  “You are an _Amerikanskiy_ idiot.  No wonder the _mafiya_ and prison ink on your skin.”  

She shakes him then, eyes still flashing dangerously and he laughs despite himself.

“Stop,” he sputters as she presses her body into his, the better to smack the back of his head,  scolding him all the while in Russian.  “Stop _Natashenka_! I’m sorry!”

He grips her wrists, his fingers wrapping tight against her pulse points and she curses him soundly, even as he pulls her up his body to press his lips against hers, stilling the rough Russian spilling from her lips.

“I love it when you speak street to me, Natalia,” he growls, his hands wrapping tight around her hips and buttocks.  She smacks her fist lightly against his chest and grumbles at him once more in barely intelligible Russian.  

But then she smiles and returns his kiss.  

“You’re still an idiot, James Barnes,” she mutters, pressing her fingers to the broken star on his left shoulder and her forehead to his.  

“Of course,” he says, with a laugh and that crooked cocky grin she finds herself falling in love with.  “It’s part of my charm.”

Her laughter washes over him, warming him and he wonders…

Wonders if this atonement they’ve both fought for was almost done being paid off.

“Why did you come here Natasha?” he asks as she wraps her leg around his waist and he carries her towards the ring.  Brown eyes meet green and she trails kisses along his jaw for a moment before answering.

“I was wondering, James Barnes,” she gasps as those damn hands of his press into her ass and thighs, heating her skin in ways she never thought she’d feel again.  

“Yes?” he breathes, his lips busy on her throat and the swells of her breasts pressing along the edges of her tiny dress.  

“I was wondering if you’d like to come to be my date for the ballet tonight,” she groans, her head falling back on her shoulders when his teeth nip along her collar bones.  “It’s opening night and I’m the principal, you know.”

He smirks against her flushing skin and pinches her thigh lightly before tossing her up onto the ring’s mat.  

“Oh really?” he growls, his lips curling in a predatory grin when she gasps and he hauls himself up after her, easing through the ropes as he does.  “I don’t think I knew that.”

She laughs, her hand reaching up towards him, finger crooking and she tosses her hair as he falls between her legs.  “You should come.  I’m very good, you know,” she gasps as he nudges her thighs apart with his nose, lips pressing heated kisses from her knees, downwards.  

“I can only imagine, ptichka,” he groans, the taste of her flushing skin filling his mouth and he grins to himself when she gasps, hips thrusting against his mouth.  “What do I have to do, to be the date of the stunning Black Widow, anyway?”

She laughs at the nickname, at the sensation of him rubbing his stubbled chin over her sensitive skin, and she pulls his hair lightly.

“Nothing too terrifying really,” she purrs as his tongue begins to stroke and his fingers begin to tease.  

“Mmm?” he hums against her thighs, eyes closing in bliss as she writhes above him.  

“You’ll just have to wear a tuxedo.”

Her laughter drowns out the groan he lets out but he doesn’t argue.

Just lets her taste wash over him and revels in the feel of her fingers in his hair.

He just lets himself…

Atone.  

And for the first time in too many years, they both find peace in another’s arms.

And it is so very damn good.  

 

 


End file.
